NoFlyZone Lets You Establish A No-Fly Zone Over Your Property

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If your first reaction to a drone flying over your house is getting out your M16 for some target practice, you can now opt for a less violent option. NoFlyZone.org lets you establish a no-fly zone over your property and a number of drone hardware and software firms have already promised to honor your request. Among the partners in this effort are EHANG (the company behind the Ghost drone), Horizon Hobby, DroneDeploy, YUNEEC, HEXO+, PixiePath and RCFlyMaps.

As you have probably noticed, most of those are relatively unknown brands (or, as in the case of HEXO+, haven’t launched yet). DJI and 3D Robotics aren’t on the list, for example, and just DJI alone probably accounts for the vast majority of drone sales in the United States. NoFlyZone tells me the company has reached out to DJI and 3D Robotics, but has not yet confirmed participation. DJI is no stranger to no-fly zones — though sometimes a bit overeager about them — so I wouldn’t be surprised if the company decided to participate in this project, too.

Given that virtually all unmanned aerial vehicles have cameras and lend themselves to these kind of antics, it’s understandable that some people wouldn’t want a drone to circle over their backyards. Smart operators of remotely piloted quadcopters don’t fly over buildings and people anyway, but there will always be a few who don’t (want to) follow the rules.

Using NoFlyZone, home owners can register their address and create a geofence around their property. Oddly enough, though, you don’t have to prove that you own a specific property (I just registered the space over our TechCrunch office in San Francisco as a no-fly zone).

The company tells me that it will only allow one address per registrant by default. If you want to register more than one, you will have to show proof by providing a copy of a formal document like a utility bill. I don’t quite see how that would stop somebody from using multiple email addresses to register all of their neighbors, but I guess it’s a first step (and wouldn’t most people only want to register one address anyway?).